Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2009-09-14 09:21 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2009-09-14 09:21 pm
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Warning re: Lausanne tickets!
Warning for anyone who might be trying to buy tickets for the Lausanne, Switzerland production of Les Mis: their payment system is screwed up. I tried to buy a ticket, it worked fine up to the last 'verifying payment' screen, then it churned for a while and spat out a "Sorry, we couldn't process your order, please try again" message. So I tried again with the same result. Then wondered if someone had somehow grabbed the seat I was trying to buy, so I changed the seat and tried again with the same result. And then wondered if it was a problem with my American debit card and switched to my French debit card and tried again, same result. Then, belatedly, I went to the Bank of America website to take a look at my account, and discovered that every one of those failed attempts was listed as a pending charge to my check card. After much screaming at the computer screen, I hit the back button on the ticket page in the hopes of at least being able to copy down the error message, gritted my teeth and resubmitted the form data, and I got... a confirmation number and a "sorry for the inconvenience, your order couldn't be processed at the moment due to a technical glitch, we'll fix it in a day or two and send you another email." 'Another' email?! I never got one in the first place. The 'current orders' section of my account with the site is empty too.
Best-case scenario, that last screen means I got my ticket and all the other pending charges won't go through. Second-best scenario, they are nice like Telecharge and contact you to ask if you REALLY meant to buy so many separate tickets for the same day. Third-best, none of it actually went through and I'll have to buy myself a crappy last-minute ticket at the box office when I get there. Fourth-best, they are assholes and I will have to dispute the charges, which seems pretty clear-cut since some of the pending charges are for tickets for the SAME SEAT and I have at least one of the "lol whoops technical difficulties" messages printed out in black and white. Worst-case scenario, they've been hax0red and I'll have to cancel both my debit cards and get Bank of America and BNP Paribas to cancel fraudulent charges.
There's a 60-day window to dispute a charge, so I can afford to wait a few days and see if they fix it on their own. But I'm lucky in that it won't wreck my finances to have several hundred bucks' worth of pending charges hanging over my account balance, and I know not everyone has that luxury, so this is a warning: be careful buying tickets to the Lausanne production.
Best-case scenario, that last screen means I got my ticket and all the other pending charges won't go through. Second-best scenario, they are nice like Telecharge and contact you to ask if you REALLY meant to buy so many separate tickets for the same day. Third-best, none of it actually went through and I'll have to buy myself a crappy last-minute ticket at the box office when I get there. Fourth-best, they are assholes and I will have to dispute the charges, which seems pretty clear-cut since some of the pending charges are for tickets for the SAME SEAT and I have at least one of the "lol whoops technical difficulties" messages printed out in black and white. Worst-case scenario, they've been hax0red and I'll have to cancel both my debit cards and get Bank of America and BNP Paribas to cancel fraudulent charges.
There's a 60-day window to dispute a charge, so I can afford to wait a few days and see if they fix it on their own. But I'm lucky in that it won't wreck my finances to have several hundred bucks' worth of pending charges hanging over my account balance, and I know not everyone has that luxury, so this is a warning: be careful buying tickets to the Lausanne production.